New perspective for English?

[Susan C.]

I am rethinking our approach to English..... :)

 

We keep going through grammar workbooks, writing assignments, a literature book with it's assignments. It does the job and I guess we can keep going as we have been, but I keep thinking it can be done more efficiently (and be more interesting). I think I want to have dd just write and read and analyse in books of her choosing, but I'm not sure how to get there. I'm not an English teacher, so I need something with answers or helps, or something.... I am somewhat available, but whatever we use would work best if she could work mostly independently.

 

Would I be happier with Teaching Co. Art of Reading, or Building Great Sentences, or something else along those lines? I think it would be better to actually write, rather than be stuck in tearing apart mode...

 

Anyone else getting my drift and have any thoughts?

[Harriet Vane]

Have you read The Well-Educated Mind?

[TravelingChris]

What grade is she and what types of literature has she studied already? The two main styles of English in the high school years are by country of origin or chronological. So you do something like Intro, American British, World, or like WTM does Ancient, Medieval-Renaissance, Early Modern, Late Modern. If you chose either one of the above, you don't need textbooks, just the books. You can then choose a variety of books in a certain genre or time period and have her choose from those. So have her pick one or two Greek plays or a few Shakespeare plays.

[Susan C.]

Christina,

I'm sorry...she is in 10th grade. We are currently doing A Beka World Literature. Last year, she read 8 books (I just let her read the books, and does take in a lot when she reads and if I catch her in the right mood :) she will tell me about it). Some stories in the lit. book go great....others, well, she seems to be tiring of answering the what occupation is so and so, how much was the dress, memorizing author names and titles, etc. type of questions. It takes her forever to do it because she is afraid she will forget some piddly detail that will be on a quiz or test. So she spends a lot of time taking notes, making up questions to answer, etc. When my son did the same curriculum, he had this incredible memory, and didn't have to work so hard remembering the details. But, now in college, he tells me that it would have helped him to have actually gone over the ideas, and that he enjoys whole works much more... He told me today that answering silly questions and having to remember small details derails the whole process of taking in the work and breaks your thoughts up, that in college he reads the books, they discuss in class, then get tested about general ideas. I may be afraid to take the plunge and handle it without a set curriculum because of my lack of literary analysis skills... but it does seem that she gets plenty out of books without all of the busy work. I am having the same problem in history (using a textbook). I originally picked the textbooks because I wanted a broad exposure of many authors and pieces of their works, rather than a few authors and entire works. So, the kids end up being familiar with author's names, maybe a title or two (if they don't mix them up), rather than a more indepth knowledge of any work. (I noticed that CLEP seems to test on little details, but we ended up not doing the CLEP tests). With grammar, we continue to tear apart the sentences, and cover complex sentence structures. I am wondering if we could learn from the perspective of actually writing the sentences, but I am not sure I can oversee that. I think I am getting the gist of the fact that getting a good education will teach you how to learn, not cram disjointed information into the kids heads...

 

What would 10th grade English look like for a slower deliberate reader amount wise and work wise?

 

Thanks!

[TravelingChris]

Well usually you do one book per month or a unit of poetry or short stories. I used ABEKA for one year in the upper grades. I found the readings okay but the questions boring. I have designed a British Lit reading course I am using for my dd and it is a bit different since I don't give her a full month on all readings and a few I give five weeks. But she has writing this year in a separate class and normally you read for a certain number of weeks than write and rewrite. There are many lists of good books to read for world lit including the Well Trained Mind, and many sites on the web. Good luck.